Devil Ball Golf

Could a green card keep Marc Leishman from the British Open?

You win a tournament, and that vaults you into one of the biggest events of the year. There's just one problem: You can't play it without help from the bureaucrats.

Stupid international law.

Marc Leishman, days off winning at the Travelers Championship, is eligible and likely to make the field for the British Open in just a few weeks. Trouble is, Leishman is Australian, living with his American wife in America, and they just had their first kid, and ... look, it's very complicated, OK? He doesn't have his green card approved for international travel, let's leave it at that.

He didn't bother playing in the recent Gleneagles qualifier because he figured he'd be home with his new son, and so didn't bother getting his green card updated. "But I spoke to my lawyers, my immigration lawyers, two days ago, and it's looking like I will hopefully be able to go," he said. "I've been approved for an advanced parole to leave the country."

The trick is that these matters usually take about 30 days to resolve, and we're 21 days out from the start of the British. That's cutting it a wee bit close, yes? Still, nice problem to have.

"Everything happened so quick," he said. " It was just good things kept coming throughout the night [after the win]. Yeah, it's been a pretty good couple of days."

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